milk for free?

If this was a problem in Tozer's time it has become an epidemic in modern times and almost considered a 'legalism' by some.

August 29

Evangelism: Salvation Apart from Obedience

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
--Ephesians 2:10

Therefore, I must be frank in my feeling that a notable heresy has come into being throughout our evangelical Christian circles--the widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Savior and we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as Lord as long as we want to!...

I think the following is a fair statement of what I was taught in my early Christian experience and it certainly needs a lot of modifying and a great many qualifiers to save us from being in error.

"We are saved by accepting Christ as our Savior; we are sanctified by accepting Christ as our Lord; we may do the first without doing the second!"

The truth is that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred Scriptures. Peter makes it plain that we are "chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience" (1 Peter 1:2).
I Call It Heresy, 1-2.

"Lord, as I rejoice in the free gift of salvation, by grace through faith, remind me regularly that it is a salvation unto good works, that we're saved to serve. Amen."

source : http://lmi.gospelcom.net/

It reminds me of today's relationships. "Men" tell their girlfriends "I love you, I love you" but they do not want to get married.

Remember the saying "Why buy the cow when I can have the milk for free?"

Are we trying to say this of God Grace? Is this what we are saying when we live in continual disobedience to God's word and claim "No worries, I am saved"?

To me that is a fearful place to be...

Church Of God Grill

I heard a reference to this on the radio today:

When I lived in Atlanta, several years ago, I noticed in the Yellow Pages, in the listing of restaurants, an entry for a place called Church of God Grill. The peculiar name aroused my curiosity and I dialed the number. A man answered with a cheery, "Hello! Church of God Grill!" I asked how his restaurant had been given such an unusual name, and he told me: "Well, we had a little mission down here, and we started selling chicken dinners after church on Sunday to help pay the bills. Well, people liked the chicken, and we did such a good business, that eventually we cut back on the church service. After a while we just closed down the church altogether and kept on serving the chicken dinners. We kept the name we started with, and that's Church of God Grill." This incident is not unlike many churches, denominations, and individuals who over time, have drifted away from their original purpose. -- Charles Paul Conn
[Borrowed from Swindoll's "Dropping Your Guard," p. 53 -Holwick]

Have you drifted away from God's purpose? Are we in the church just teaching, preaching, and doing the things that are 'popular'? Are we thinking that if we get a good turnout that we are doing God's will?

If souls are not saved and lifes are not changed we are just serving chicken dinners.

Obituary - Someone Else

The speaker at my "Cross Trainers" group read this this week. I thought I would post it for everyone.

Our church was saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our most valued members, Someone Else. Someone's passing creates a vacancy that will be difficult to fill. Else has been with us for many years and for every one of those years, Someone did far more than a normal person's share of the work.

Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone's list, "Let Someone Else do it." Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results; "Someone Else can work with that group." It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the most liberal givers in our church. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed Someone Else would make up the difference.

Someone Else was a wonderful person; sometimes appearing superhuman. Were the truth known, everybody expected too much of Someone Else. Now Someone Else is gone! We wonder what we are going to do.

Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it? Who is going to do the things Someone Else did? When you are asked to help this year, remember - we can't depend on Someone Else anymore.

~ Author Unknown

What Could Really Be That Important !?!?

What could really be that important that it can not wait?

Lately I have been looking at things we have and things we do and wondering if they are really that important from an eternal perspective. Unless this person pictured is sharing Christ with a person about to commit suicide or something then it can probably wait.

Some Thoughts:
How much of the chaos of life do we create our self?
Do we just go, go, go all the time because we are afraid that if we stop we might have to really deal will something?
Is busy-ness our ‘drug’ to keep from dealing with issues?
Do we think if we juggle many issues we can avoid really have to deal with any of them?
If one starts to hit to close to home we can just switch gears and ‘work’ on a different problem..

Dumber than Jonah…
At least when Jonah was running from God he had a destination! Are we, by our busy-ness, running (to nowhere) from God? It’s time for all us to slow down and let God speak to us before a ‘great fish’ swallows us up.

MAN IT'S HOT!

Temperature could hit 100 degrees today

I hope you all are staying cool!